


In Communion

by Amuly



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Bottom Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Canon Gay Character, Canon Gay Relationship, Catholic Character, Church Sex, Churches & Cathedrals, Foreign Language, Hand Jobs, Intercrural Sex, Languages, M/M, Muslim Character, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn with Feelings, Pre-Canon, Religion, Religious Discussion, Top Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:29:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,659
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27342004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amuly/pseuds/Amuly
Summary: Yusuf and Nicolo make camp in a sacristy one night and have sex. They tease each other about their religions and Yusuf is verbose in his compliments.It's just an intercrural sex PWP!
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 25
Kudos: 231





	In Communion

Yusuf’s low whistle pierced through the night, but with the sounds of owls and nightingales it was hardly noticeable unless you were listening for it. Nicolo shrugged his pack on and moved silently through the long grass, head on a swivel as he looked from side to side for any sign of movement other than his own. But the world was quiet and dark in the light of a crescent moon. As Nicolo crouched through the grass he glanced up at the moon, once, and allowed himself the smallest smile at the shape.

The church was silent as he entered it. Nicolo glanced to the side of the door as he passed through the threshold, looking for the traditional holy water fonts. But of course, whatever water in them wouldn’t be holy—not in that way, at least. It’d be rainwater, condensation, stagnant water that appeared in all small bowls when left to nature for long enough. Still, Nicolo crossed himself as he passed through the threshold of the church. The ground was still sanctified. That counted for something.

Yusuf was standing in the middle of the nave, head tilted back and looking up at the massive crucifix that still hung above the altar. He didn’t turn as Nicolo snuck up on him, which of course did not mean he didn’t hear him. Yusuf heard him.

“Thinking of converting?” Nicolo teased as he came up on him. He rounded level with Yusuf just in time to see the smile curl up the corners of his mouth, before it spread wide across his face and up into his eyes. Nicolo loved the way he smiled with his whole face. So different from Nicolo’s own more naturally dour expression.

“Paying my respects,” Yusuf mused. His eyes slid over to the side as he added, “To a prophet.”

“Πάτερ, ἄφες αὐτοῖς, οὐ γὰρ οἴδασιν τί ποιοῦσιν,” Nicolo muttered, crossing himself.

“Shouldn’t that be ‘αυτω’-”

“I was quoting directly.”

“You forgot to switch from plural to singular.”

Nicolo tutted in the back of his throat, not rising to Yusuf’s bait. But of course Yusuf looked at him and laughed anyway, because Yusuf loved poking fun. A moment later and Yusuf was pulling him into a quick kiss, to put the argument to bed.

And speaking of bed, it had been a long day on the road—a long week, a long month. Nicolo wanted to hunker down and get some shut eye. Even though their bodies healed, their minds and spirits could still grow weary, and like mortal men they too needed rest. Nicolo jerked his head to the side, and together they moved down the nave towards the altar.

The sacristy, as profane as it felt, was often the most secure place to bunk down in an abandoned church. Isolated, somewhat hidden, one way in and out, small, all meant it was easy to fortify. Nicolo stood back as Yusuf entered the sacristy, sword drawn. He waited until he heard Yusuf’s low whistle and then followed him in, giving the church main one last look-over for any signs of movement.

They secured the door first, shoving an old, creaky kneeler in front of it, before they started pulling out bedrolls and cooking supplies for dinner. Obviously they couldn’t start a fire in the isolated room, but they had salted rabbit and some apples they’d picked as they walked today. It wasn’t a bad dinner for bellies such as theirs, which had grown used to so much worse over the years. Yusuf smiled at Nicolo as he ate, and Nicolo offered him a smirk in return. Not a bad day. Not a bad week. Exhausting, but not bad. God knew they’d been through worse.

They laid their swords aside as they cleaned up their kit and re-packed as much as they could, in case they needed to leave suddenly in the night. Then Yusuf looked at Nicolo, and reached a hand out, hooking his fingers into the bottom of Nicolo’s tunic. And Nicolo let himself be dragged into Yusuf’s embrace, because he never wanted to be anywhere else, and he was long past the days of denying for denial’s sake.

“You want to have me here?” Nicolo teased, faux-scandalized.

Yusuf bent his knees slightly, to bring his groin better in line with Nicolo’s. He ground their hips together, laughter lighting up his face, smile brilliant in the dark. Nicolo brought a hand up to stroke at Yusuf’s cheek, feeling the firmness of his skin stretched by smile and coarse, thick beard beneath his finger pads. That smile brought light to the darkest of places—had found Nicolo plenty of times throughout the centuries, deep beneath the earth, and brought him back into the sun. Yusuf brushed his lips against Nicolo’s.

“I want to have you everywhere,” he rejoined. “I would have you on under the stars, in a mosque, _Bayt al-_ _Ḥ_ _ikmah_ , _nei vigneti, habibata-_ ”

Nicolo cut him off with a kiss, swallowing his proclamations, stealing them away on his tongue and tucking them back into his mouth as Yusuf’s tongue chased his own. Yusuf could go on forever extolling the depths of his love, which meant it was down to Nicolo to make sure he stayed focused. After all, their bodies may sand down the roughest edges of exhaustion from poking too sharply at them, but their minds still needed rest. A full night’s, even, if it could be managed.

Yusuf chuckled into Nicolo’s mouth because he _knew_ what he was doing, but of course, he very much _liked_ what Nicolo was doing, as well. He bent a little lower, wrapping his arms around the very bottom of Nicolo’s back, lifting him into the kiss. Nicolo smiled against Yusuf’s beard, and Yusuf was smiling right back, because they were fools in love and they had been and they would be, world without end. Or something along those lines.

The church was eerily quiet, the sounds of their kissing near-profane in the silence. The thick stone walls kept the normal sounds of the night from them, the late summer crickets and owls and wolves howling in the distance, mice and hares skittering through the fields. Their boots scraped over the stone floors as Yusuf pushed Nicolo back, back, until his hips bumped into something behind him. Nicolo helped with a little hop as Yusuf lifted him up onto the piece of furniture. Their knuckles knocked against each other as they both reached down to undo their own belts and lacing, shoving trousers down and away as they freed their eager arousals.

Yusuf spit into his hand twice before reaching down to stroke them together, foreskins rolling down and up beneath his palm. Nicolo groaned and tossed his hair out of his eyes, head falling back as his legs spread wider nearly of their own accord.

“How I love you,” Yusuf whispered, bending down to lick the sweat from Nicolo’s neck. “I could never count all the ways. Not if we lived to see the end of all empires.”

“Try,” Nicolo teased.

“Your skin,” Yusuf crooned, reaching his free hand up to cup Nicolo’s cheek and stare deeply into his eyes. “Olive and beautiful. It gets dark across your nose and dusts your cheeks when we spend too long out in the sun. But then, like a flower in the night, it fades away with the moonrise, glistening and white under the stars.”

“You like it because you can see me blush,” Nicolo pointed out. Yusuf grinned, grinding his hips harder against Nicolo as punctuation.

“So you admit you blush.”

“Do not hold it against me. I am being tortured,” Nicolo complained. He pressed his hips down, begging with eyes and thighs for more. Yusuf grinned and grabbed him into a deep kiss. It was Nicolo’s only warning before Yusuf pulled him down onto his feet and turned him around, bending him over the table.

“Your hair,” Yusuf continued, pressing his face against Nicolo’s neck, rubbing his nose and cheeks against the shaggy hair back there. Nicolo’s eyes fluttered as Yusuf pressed between his thighs, hardness rubbing against the sensitive, flushed skin. Yusuf’s hand had already returned to Nicolo’s own arousal, jerking him firmly. “Golden. Nearly white, at times, in the sun. Like a halo on all those idols you Catholics love so much to paint.”

The religious dig made Nicolo laugh and open his eyes, where he was confronted with exactly where he was. The table: it was the tabernacle. Nicolo laughed to himself and sent up a small prayer of contrition. Luckily it must have been a long while since the body of Christ has graced the presence of this particular tabernacle. So he hoped, at least.

“What? No response? Nothing about Muhammad, _ṣ_ _all_ _ā_ _-ll_ _ā_ _hu ʿ_ _alayh_ _ī_ _wa-ʾ_ _ā_ _lih_ _ī_ _wa-sallam,_ or the _salah_?”

“I cannot find it within myself to muster an ecclesiastical argument when your hand is bringing me such ecstasy,” Nicolo admitted. Said hand worked him harder, and Nicolo found himself leaking all over it, smoothing the way even further.

“Ah, how you grow so wet for me, _habibata_ ,” Yusuf murmured, kissing at Nicolo’s neck. Nicolo shuddered. His teeth grazed against Nicolo’s skin, sending sparks lighting up behind his eyelids. “It makes me so hard for you.”

Nicolo turned his head, begging with his body again. Yusuf understood, of course, and grabbed Nicolo’s chin to pull him into a kiss. Their first language together had been the language of their bodies, before they cobbled together a dialect of Greek they could both understand between them. Hands gestures, flickers of eyes, nodding heads. It hadn’t been a language of touch then—not in this way, in this ecstatic joining. But it had been their first communion, the first path they found towards understanding each other. And sometimes, because of that, it felt like the language they could understand each other the best in. The native tongue of their life as Yusuf-and-Nicolo.

“Your thighs,” Yusuf gasped into Nicolo’s skin. His hardness speared between said thighs as he spoke, dripping wetness smoothing the way. Nicolo shuddered beneath the assault, feeling Yusuf’s balls slapping against the back of his legs, his foreskin pulling back with every thrust forward, the mushroom head of his arousal rubbing at the underside of Nicolo’s own balls.

“ _Mi amore,_ ” Nicolo groaned. “ _Piacere_ ,” he pleaded.

Yusuf’s left hand was rough on Nicolo’s thighs, squeezing at them, kneading at the skin and hard muscle beneath. “Like sculpted marble. Hard and strong. Pale and glistening. I could spend a hundred lifetimes lavishing your thighs with the worship they deserve. The poets would need to invent new words just to capture their beauty in any earthly language.”

Nicolo reached a hand back to grasp at Yusuf’s own, tangling their fingers together on his hip as Yusuf pounded relentlessly between his thighs.

“ _Mi amore_ -” Nicolo repeated again, at a loss. _Απορια_.

“Do you need to spill, love?” Yusuf asked, deceptively sweet. “Does your passion for me overflow?”

“ _Yusuf_ ,” Nicolo croaked, eyes squeezed shut.

“Ah, _Nicolo, bello mio…_ ” Yusuf murmured. His hand sped up over Nicolo’s arousal, jerking the head hard and fast. “Let go, Nicolo. Let slip your passions and burst forth, μου καλλος, _mio tutto_ , _nujumi-_ ”

Nicolo let out a cry as his arousal crested inside him and spilled forth into Yusuf’s waiting palm. Yusuf growled as he smeared Nicolo’s seed over him, between his legs, onto his own aching hardness. Nicolo curled forward, aching with the pleasure of his release, as Yusuf continued to rut between his thighs. Yusuf’s hand slipped from between his legs to reach up and grab Nicolo’s neck, holding him bent in half over the tabernacle as he chased his own release. Nicolo shook against the table, one lazy eye open, fixed on the box that once held Christ’s transubstantiated body. He snorted and closed the eye, skin singing as Yusuf’s thrusts grew more erratic.

God love him, but this felt like its own communion. If he wouldn’t burn for thinking it.

Yusuf groaned and ground his hips against Nicolo’s, finally spending himself between his thighs. Nicolo smiled at the feeling, the warm wetness that dripped, rapidly cooling, between his legs.

“ _I love when you mark me with your seed_ ,” Nicolo murmured in Genoese. “ _Makes me yours_.”

Yusuf gathered Nicolo into his arms, turning him around so he could pepper his face in kisses. He panted lightly into Nicolo’s mouth, rubbing his body along Nicolo in post-coital bliss.

“And I love to mark you,” Yusuf told him. Then, smiling, he brushed Nicolo’s hair from his face with both hands, carding the hair back until he stopped to cup Nicolo’s face in his palms. “I love _you_ , Nicolo.”

Nicolo smirked and leaned forward to press the quickest, smallest kiss to Yusuf’s pouting lips.

“You… I don’t hate.”

Yusuf gasped, dropping his hands from Nicolo’s face. Nicolo giggled as Yusuf grabbed for him, tickling his sides, poking and smacking at all his most vulnerable spaces.

“The stars _weep_ for how you treat me,” Yusuf moaned, gathering Nicolo back into his arms. “That my affections have settled upon such an uncaring, unfeeling brute!”

“It is a tragedy,” Nicolo agreed. He clicked his tongue, scrunched his face. “But: maybe I could warm up. You never know.”

Yusuf grinned down at him, their noses nearly brushing. “I just have to keep trying, is that it?”

“It seems the only way.”

“Hmmm.” Yusuf closed the inches between them to suck Nicolo into a wet, languid kiss.

Nicolo groaned and stretched when they finally separated, tugging at his trousers, re-lacing and buckling everything that needed lacing and buckling. They’d leave their swords and belts off while they slept (though not out of reach), along with their boots and packs. They needed to be ready to fight in a hurry, but of course, it wasn’t as though bandits could sneak up and cut their throats. Not with an outcome that would be very satisfactory for the bandits, at least.

As Yusuf laced up his own trousers he eyed the tabernacle, appearing to notice it for the first time. Frowning, he reached out and flipped it open, peering inside.

“Don’t-” Nicolo warned him. But Yusuf came out empty-handed and smiling.

“You wouldn’t let me? Even after all these years?”

“I could give you the sacraments,” Nicolo countered, straight-faced. “First is baptism. Would you like to accept Jesus Christ as the son of God?”

Yusuf shrugged. “Eh. Ask me again in another hundred years.”

“That is a lie,” Nicolo observed with no heat as the settled down onto their meager bedrolls. The cold of the stone floors seeped into their bones even as they wrapped themselves around each other for warmth.

Yusuf nuzzled his nose against the back of Nicolo’s neck. Even spent as he was, Yusuf’s very touch still made Nicolo shiver. He smiled and arched back against Yusuf, enjoying the warmth of his lover at his back.

“All poets lie,” Yusuf reminded him. “It is how we speak the truth.”

“I should be grateful you are a terrible poet, then?” Nicolo mused. “It assures me all your compliments are truths.”

Just for that, Yusuf didn’t attend to Nicolo’s erection the next morning, even as Nicolo warmed him up with his mouth on Yusuf’s own organ. But, Nicolo figured, he mostly deserved that. And some things were their own reward.

Nicolo did stop to check the tabernacle himself before they left, to be sure there was no consecrated host left behind to rot sacrilegiously. There wasn’t, and Nicolo had to endure Yusuf’s teasing for the rest of the morning. But that was okay: they were headed south, and west, and soon enough, campanile would give way to minarets, and Nicolo’s sacred spaces would be replaced by Yusuf’s. And they would walk among them together as they had done for centuries, and would do for who knew how long more.


End file.
